Wakita Shaw’s troubles started with a $425 payday loan, the kind of high-interest, short-term debt that seldom ends well for the borrower . . . Shaw was surprised in May of last year to hear that the St. Louis County police were looking for her. She and her mother went to the police station. They arrested her on the spot. They told her the bail was $1,250… People do go to jail over private debt. It’s a regular occurrence in metro St. Louis, on both sides of the Mississippi River.”

Last week, a San Diego paper covered how motorists given speeding tickets for $35, actually end up owing the state $235 (including a criminal conviction fee, state court construction charge, and DNA identification fee).

Similarly, Ricardo Graham was incarcerated in Rhode Island for 40 days because he couldn’t pay court fees. He was jailed and held for a bail of $745 – while the state paid $4,000 to incarcerate him – and lost his job due to his imprisonment.

Across the country, states and local governments are raising and aggressively collecting criminal fees and fines (including court fees, jail stay fees, and even public defender fees). Often, failing to pay these fees lands people in jail. Courts are supposed to hold hearings to determine whether a person has the means to pay before punishing them for nonpayment. Instead, courts are bypassing this key constitutional safeguard and simply jailing those who can’t pay their fees.

At the same time, private companies and collection agencies are increasingly using state courts to collect civil debts (like loan payments and medical bills). They file lawsuits against debtors and often fail to serve them with notice of court dates or intentionally serve them at incorrect addresses. When debtors do not show up, agencies procure arrest warrants from courts, leading to incarceration of the debtors. Bail is usually set at an amount equal to or higher than the original fees and fines they defendants couldn’t pay in the first place. All this has amounted to a return of debtor’s prisons, which the Supreme Court has found unconstitutional.